


Four Secrets About the Way Michael Lives

by mercurybard



Series: Prison Break before the prison [4]
Category: Prison Break
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurybard/pseuds/mercurybard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even now, he can't live the way he's supposed to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Secrets About the Way Michael Lives

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Prison Break, make no profit off of this, and mean no harm

1.

He doesn't bring women back to the loft. They always go to her place, if things progress that far—and they so rarely do. He doesn't want to explain why the bed makes that strange crinkly noise when they roll around on it. He doesn't want to explain that beneath the sheets and the mattress pad, there's a bunch of black plastic garbage bags duct-taped around the mattress. Because this is the first mattress he's ever owned that's never been peed on by a drunk, and one of the few that wasn't found on the side of the road.

2.

When guests come over, he won't open the closet doors. Not even to put their coats away. Because he doesn't want them to see that everything in them is stored in tipped-over boxes. Just in case he has to move in a hurry—he can tip them back the other way and tape them shut. He's calculated that it will take him only forty-nine minutes to complete vacate his loft, should the need ever arise.

They were thrown out of hotel rooms and apartments and abandoned buildings too many times for him to live any other way.

3.

He's only used his television set once since he bought it. The screen is way too big, he thinks, and the picture comes in too crisp and clear. There's no fighting with a coat-hanger antenna. There's no reason to smack the side of it in hopes that violence will somehow convince it to clear up the fuzz obscuring the images it plays.

It makes him uncomfortable trying to watch when the picture doesn't look like it's been soaked in thick tomato soup and doesn't fritz out inevitably at the key moment of the show. Deep down, he knows watching TV is too easy for him now, so he doesn't.

4.

The cell phone sits right beside his pillow, every night, regardless of where he sleeps. Just in case Lincoln calls. Because he couldn't stand to miss a phone call from his brother, even one consisting of little more than drunk dialing at 3am. Because the next time Lincoln calls, he could be in real trouble.


End file.
